Descendant of famous English author touring the countryside, sharing tale

Sunday

Dec 1, 1996 at 12:01 AM

DEBRA LESTER

Gerald Charles Dickens was first asked to perform his great-great-grandfather's holiday masterpiece, ``A Christmas Carol,'' in 1993, the 150th anniversary of its publication.

The actor's performance and the public's interest in Charles Dickens' life led Gerald Dickens to research and write his one-man show, ``Mr. Dickens Is Coming!'' ``I just sort of drifted into it, really,'' said Gerald Dickens, descendant of Henry Fielding Dickens, the eighth of 10 children, the only one who had any children. The show also led him in October to embark on his first American tour, which is primarily crisscrossing the South. Last month Dickens' Southern Festival of Books tour brought him to The Open Book in Greenville where he signed copies of his audiocassette, ``A Christmas Carol,'' and copies of ``Christmas with Dickens,'' a Christmas feast based on ``A Christmas Carol.'' He read excerpts of the beloved tale of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Gerald Dickens, 33, lives south of London in Royal Turnbridge Wells, County Kent, England, the same county where his great-great-grandfather lived. In fact, he is chairman of the Gad's Hill Place Preservation Committee, which is responsible for ensuring the maintenance of Charles Dickens' last home. Charles Dickens lived most of his life in Rochester in County Kent. ``An awful lot about Charles Dickens is very well known. I'm afraid I don't have any secrets through the family I can offer you,'' Gerald Dickens said. Charles Dickens had a trying childhood, according to Gerald Dickens. ``His father was a good father, but he was always in debt. But he wasn't a bad man. He didn't drink. He didn't gamble. He loved to entertain and that was all it was. And he always just spent just over what he earned and consequently he was always in debt. He couldn't manage money.'' ``Because of that, (Charles Dickens) was driven to be a success at whatever he did, whether it was acting, writing, journalism, editing. It wasn't a financial thing. He just wanted to have lived his life to the absolute full and say he did everything he could to succeed. ``And that was why he wrote so much so fast. When he performed in public he performed with such energy and such verve.'' Charles Dickens died at age 58. Doctors told him to give up performing, so he did a final farewell tour. His last performance was in February 1870, and he died in June 1870. He was still writing at the end. When Charles Dickens wrote ``A Christmas Carol,'' Gerald Dickens said, ``He needed money, not desperately, but his father was still very much in debt and a lot of his brothers were also taking money from him. Not in a bad way. He was giving it to them, but he had a huge extended family to pay for. ``His wife was giving birth about once a year on average, sometimes more. For a 16-year period, she was giving birth, about to give birth, recovering from giving birth for 13 years out of those 16. She had a couple of miscarriages, 10 children, one who died very young.'' To cope with this, Charles Dickens had an idea of publishing a little book for Christmas. ``By this time he was incredibly famous. He was one of the most famous people in England. A little book that everybody would have by their fireside at Christmas,'' Gerald Dickens said. ``He'd been walking around the streets of London a lot and he'd seen a lot of poverty and neglect so he wanted to tell about that, to remind people that these problems were there. So he wrote a book about a miser who hangs on to his money and doesn't share it with anyone purely to make some money. ``He actually didn't make very much money on it because it was the very first one of his books that he published himself.'' Charles Dickens tried to write Christmas books every year and ``they got progressively worse,'' his great-great-grandson said. ``A Christmas Carol'' is not nearly so popular in England as it is here. Gerald Dickens said he thinks that is because the United States is so diverse that it is difficult to have a Christian Christmas festival without excluding anyone. But ``A Christmas Carol,'' he said, ``is exactly the spirit of Christmas. You can hang your whole Christmas celebration on this and it tells exactly the same message without it being any certain denomination of religion. I think that is why it is so successful here. It is the spirit of Christmas.''